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It’s time to uncover some more details about how my ikebana class is going…We’ve been practicing kakei-ho since April, starting on the very beginning & going through the programe individually, with each student at it’s own pace. You can also see the best of my students’ arrangements on flickr – My Students. Keisei ikebana class

The programme is based on Sogetsu Textbooks, with Kakei-ho covering Books 1 & 2, giving the schemes to make the basic arrangement & and their variations in 2 shapes – upright & slanting, and in 2 styles – moribana & nageire, using 2 different types of vases. Basically every week we come to the class & practice ikebana, listening to aerial inspirational music while we arrange (to get in the ood & not to talk that much). We are also watching some inspirational pictures & talking about floristic techniques & philosophical matters of the arrangement. I’m very proud of my students’ works & their progress, and I’m happy that step by step they are joining me on the way of expressing ourselves through flowers…Thanks to Lily, Jane, Nastya & Masha for their work & check out the next post – “How is it going in the class, part2 – learning nageire” – to have more of their works!

So we started with a basic moribana arrangement, in upright & slanting shapes. But from the very beginning trying to create a feeling, an emotion with each arrangement:

And why do we practice? Imagine that ikebana is a verse, a sentence, a saying consisting of words…So we practice not just to enjoy it, but also to shape all the words, to spell them clearly. Have a look how two different vases changed the overall impression of the white tulip or white apple blossom arrangements from the slideshow? The transparent glass adds more fragility to the spring feeling of the composition, it´s a stronger adjective in our sentence.

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And here above with the Easter & the coming of Spring theme, you can see how the basic arrangement can be very exciting to make. Because you don’t just follow the scheme, you follow your heart! Well, below we are adding some meaning to the Basic again. This time, the theme was to make an arrangement inspired by the verse. In the slideshow above you see a composition inspired by Lewis Carol’s “Alice in Wonderland”. Actually, this type of tasks you can add to any kind of arrangement at any level of studying ikebana. And then we are trying to get the arrangement more complicated by setting kind a still life scene around it, adding some more context to the idea. We also practiced arrangements inspired by Eastern verse & the Japanese fans.

Then you take each of the 8 variations, and practiсe them in moribana and nageire styles, “low-bordered” & “tall” vases, in upright or slanting dynamics. You can use the vases provided in the class or take your own, according to the needed style. And the more interesting it becomes with learning nageire…